"depression is symptomatic of the excess positivity that we find in acheivement society." excellent

It sounds like the story of my life. I think the only time I've ever been truly happy is walking to and from work. That's the time when I don't have to be "on": no pointless work, no phone, no computer. I don't know about anyone else but I look at the Western world, and it reminds me of a casino. It never closes, there's lots of lights and colours, and in the end you lose your money.

For being from 2010, this book seems to map great to our current "hustle culture"

2:41 - "Once it is able to present itself as freedom, domination becomes complete" - Byung-Chul Han - The Disappearance of Rituals

Han's book has been really influential in my thinking over the past academic year, especially about my own burnout as a PhD candidate in history. Overcoming the passivity inherent in Han's conceptualization of hyperactivity is about finding the power within to say no to adding on more and more to one's plate. "If one had only the power to do (something) and no power not to do, it would lead to fatal hyperactivity." (pg. 24)

Read most of the book after seeing this uploaded. The "lack of 'between-time'" tidbit resonated. I was in a car earlier and saw someone crossing the street wave goodbye to their friends and then immediately start looking at their phone. Which pretty much everyone does. But also makes me think that we interrupt the "interruption" or in-between time because otherwise those hyphens would be little strings of grief. Lowercase 'g,' but probably a strange grief or pseudo-grief made more alarming--if we were to sit in it or contemplate it--if, say, our phones suddenly died. Each moment of attention compulsively robbed stacks up to, I think, something like a death by a thousand swipes. P.S.: Thank you for doing what you do. It is all helpful and exciting!

When mentioning Foucoult's "Disciplinary Society" it is important to remember that his entire philosophical project was to present a historical genealogy of the Western World. In no way are Byun-Chul Han's reflections on the current "Achievement Society" exclusive of a disciplinary society and these two ways of interpreting societies are definitely not dichotomies. In other words, we can simultaneously live in a burnout society and a disciplinary society.

Thanks for introducing this book and articulating its main points. It resonates with me. As individuals, we need pause, contemplation, awe, wonder, and so forth to strengthen our sense of self and be at home with ourselves.

I cannot express enough how thankful I am for stumbling upon your video here!!!!! Looking forward to watching more of your videos.

This is so topical, I can't believe the book came out back in 2010! I'm rolling out a performance planning framework at my corporate job, and this video really helped me articulate my issues with it in ways I couldn't have before. We ask that frontline staff in my organization - who already have clearly defined job descriptions and are burnt out - set additional personal performance goals. This takes the auto-exploitation idea and makes it a formal process, and inflicts bonus harm in the form of staff being accountable for achieving their own burnout or face repercussions for not reaching their goals. Will definitely have to check out the book in full.

Great video and subtitles. Thank you so much for making this!

I've seen a few of your videos now and I really like the dosage, this is a 10 minute dive into a topic, that I might want to continue and get into for myself, the material is not overwhelming, it is not superficial either, keep it up :-)

I very much relate to the point on achievement society where we put the pressure on ourselves to be productive and maximize our capabilities. I'm an amateur musical artist and I also work full time, so it can be very hard to balance time to work on my personal projects and time to rest after a long work day. Since the pandemic, I'd put this extra pressure on myself to spend as much time as I could doing things that would ultimately contribute to my art - if I wasn't actively making music, then at least I should be practicing my instruments, or I should be writing to work on my lyric writing. As I began to feel even more critical of my struggle to meet these standards, I started telling myself that even my leisure time could still count towards my work - I'm not just watching a good movie, I'm absorbing the emotions, the story, the dialog, the colors and sounds, I'm experiencing this art and in turn being influenced toward my own art. I'm not just reading this book, I'm taking in the language, the ideas, the images in my head. Everything I did had to be justified in my head as "I'm doing this for my work". I eventually felt like I was unable to truly chill out because I had this micro manager in my head telling me my time could be better spent doing something else, that I was wasting my time. I finally began to re-evaluate how I spend my free time when I actually got COVID and was so fatigued I could barely get out of my bed, let alone work on anything. I had to spend 3 weeks basically focusing on taking every moment as easy as possible in my weak state and forget all about how productive I was. It was a very hard time for me emotionally but I do think it kind of reset my mind and reminded me how simple and nice it is to just sit back and take it as it comes. As my man Thom Yorke once said in "The Tourist" by Radiohead: "Hey man, slow down!"

I stumbled across your channel by chance as I've been trying to broaden my intellectual horizons recently and engage with the ideas of some seminal thinkers. You both have an absolute excellent way of summarizing and synthesizing information. Your podcasts are particularly excellent- I've recently enjoyed the one about Influencers. Keep up the truly excellent work

Has Dr. Anderson ever given us a tour of her bookshelf? I really want to know what the titles are behind her!

It was a joy to find this video. Thank you!

Damn I've never heard of this book. I agree that society is so obsessed with high productivity. Not everyone is built for that life.

dr ellie one of the best work practices i used was before going home just to stop for a moment, reflect on the day and identify the one best thing you got done and moved forward and then the one main goal you hope to accomplish tomorrow. you can write these down too in a work calendar or log. it really gives a satisfying closure to the work day and a sense of accomplishment. - love these lectures. 👍🏽

I've had basically these exact same thoughts developing in my mind for a while, and I don't think anybody could've explained them in 10 minutes better than you did. Definitely gonna be reading this one.

Loving all your videos. Very educational and interesting. Made me love Philosophy more. Keep it up Ellie

Just 3 minutes in and I remember how we modify a lot of animals and plants to fit our expectations and goals of production and productivity. I thinks there's no untouched nature left to preserve. We have just found microplastic in every single ecosystem.

Thank you for your short videos. I learn a lot from these videos on Philosophy

Gracias Professor Ellie for making complicated philosophical ideas more understandable.

im here since u had 1.2k, great to see u grow dr. love your pods

Byung-Chul Han has me wrapped completely in his worldview. I'm really happy to hear him mentioned on this channel! Very relevant for our current period as a global society.

Thanks for the awesome video. Subscribed to hear more of what you have to say. I'm going to have to rewatch this video a few times because there was a lot to think reflect on.

Eloquently, I was only half paying attention to this while I was doing something else. Touché, Mr. Han.

I haven’t said, “perhaps a poem” so many times in my head in years. Thank you Professor.

This was amazing! Han describes something I've been thinking about and noticing a lot in my life the past years.

Cannot thank you enough for this insightful and eloquent talk. I have experienced this obsessive achievement mindset to an extreme degree, but till now have found no one who understands or relates to this.

Thanks Dr. Anderson for your wonderful insight. Always enjoy your videos. Keep it up!

Great episode! I would love to hear Han / yourself relate some of these ideas to sociological phenomena like FOMO (fear of missing out) and the rise of imposter syndromes.

First time watching a video of yours. In addition to the way you presented the subject matter of this post I must say I really enjoyed how clear your articulation is. Also, your pace; you don't rush. There was time to breathe and to let things sink in. Congratulations and thank you!

This is super interesting! There's been a lot of focus on achievement as a fundamental good in (analytic) philosophy of well-being (as well as on perfectionist theories). A lot of colleagues both "get" the arguments for this while still finding that there's something suspicious about "intuitions" about the prudential value of achievement. Will go to the library and get a copy (* the only copy, which turns out I can't borrow, so guessing I'm spending the day there :P). Thank you so much for introducing it!

Great work! Thank you so much Dr Anderson!

"Contemplative immersion"...this is exactly what you so effectively and nourishingly host in your videos. I was surprised and moved to see this video on The Burnout Society. It was one of those books I chose through idle browsing in a bookstore, and found it very potent and valuable, but came away with a sombre impression of the book. Your overview provides an illuminating and optimistic coda to my reading, landing on Han's idea of collective tiredness, "we-tiredness" that follows constructive collaborative exertion.

Thank you! As a quick off-the-cuff comment that this inspired me to, an observation I have done these past few years seems to suggest that now the classical "worker" has become almost that of a self-employed individual business whereas the big tech "educated" employees have taken over the idea of the conveyer belt worker, which means that the idea of class issues has become schewed and would also be the reason why the actual middle class believes itself to be the proletariat (while I actually am, I question this self-view) and then that the so called class issue has moved to become something rather in the minds of the people rather than actually reflecting the material and monetary standards; an offshoot from this is how the now individual classic worker can have more access to further developing themselves on the side of their professions even while working, while the technical specialists actually cannot afford that 'distraction' while working due to the complexity of their work. This is a fascinating development and I think it's important to understand this properly in this now modern context, otherwise the concepts in the discussion do not at all reflect and correspond to how life is.

Fantastic video. I've spent half of my life in the East, then moved to the West. I felt like you were speaking straight to me and my experiences. The book you described nailed it.

Arriving now at the channel. great analyses, thanks.

Very helpful summary of a vital issue for our times. Thanks for sharing. I like your channel, keep up the good work!

Congratulations for your channel! Its awesome, and necessary!

A joy to listen to your excellent dissertations and wonderful 👍 to watch your beautiful, expressive countenance!!.....we love 💕 you Ellie!!

Thank you! This was a good listen to my morning coffee 😀 There's something with this that resonnates with my thinking, so I have to read it - in due time ⏳

Although I'm not a fan of recent continental philosophy, it was interesting to hear your lecture. Congrats and thank you for your good work.

Oooh, exciting! Can't wait to look this guy up!

Excelente video, professor! I'll definitely buy this book.

Super stuff. Thank you for posting.

very clear analysis summary. you explain the structure of the argument clearly, good thank you

very eloquent and informative. Thank you!

Hi! Emilio here, psychologist, from Chile, thank you for your clean and clear way to explain Han's book! 😘

What a great video. I have come to the same conclusion after having had a burnout and trying to recover from that depression ever since. I am now living on the country side and have been focusing on simple life, with daily hour-long conversations with my partner about diverse topics, which has given me back a lot of creativity and self-trust. I am afraid for our people, of a mass-burnout and not knowing how to deal with it.

Very interesting topic, I’m glad you covered it. It comes to mind what’s happening with all the Chinese youth being burned out & refusing to work, study or pay bills because they seem to think it’s all worthless in the long run… I wonder if you’ve heard about this. Anyways, great video, hope to keep seeing you around! Much love ^^

I am doing my second reading of The Burnout Society. Its a great work to undersand this hardcore hustle culture we are living in nowadays. Your great explanation about this book, makes me appreciate it even more.

This channel is great! Keep it up

Finally. Someone who talks about Byung Chul Han

Nice presentation and analysis. Thanks for your effort. I found his "Palliative Society' very insightful.

Great accessible intro, thanks. Will read this book.

Thank you for the recommendation, I'll be adding it to my reading list.

OMG, wow ! Fantastic video. Thank you. ❤

Thank-you once again, Prof.

This channel is an awesome resource! Thanks for putting in the time to make these :) I only have one critique honestly. And it's just from an audio perspective. If you could try and mitigate some of that sibilance it would really elevate the whole listening experience. Either try a deesser, an eq, or at last resort a different microphone (I appreciate this is the costly option, but worth the investment considering how great this channel is)

been wanting to read this book for a while but it's far down my list at the moment. This was an awesome summary!

Thank you for this analysis.

Love your content!! And would love to have an episode on Debord somewhere down the line :)

This is neat! It seems, in part, that Byung-Chul Han is further developing some of the ideas Mark Fisher started building before his untimely passing. It's neat to see some of these concepts get more fleshed out.

haven't read the book but a friend of mine told me about Byan-Chul Han's work a few years back. Prof. Anderson's explanation felt like a description of what I sometimes feel my life has become. I have thought about studying philosophy for some while now, though I'm 37yo and could sound ridiculous to go back to study. But I really think philosophy should be taught in schools to help people develop some general degree of critical thinking, it could for sure help with overcoming burnouts. Anyways, thank you for this explanation, I really really appreciated it.

Loved the presentation. Thanks.

As an artist who recently discovered they have High Functioning Anxiety, I value and relate to everything in this video. Thx so much for making these

I can’t help but feel that taking time away to tackle burnout is a growing luxury

This was fascinating and resonated with me strongly. I guess it just leaves questions around how to combat these feelings and the naturally resulting depression that this type of society creates.

Great video. Just got a subscribe from me. Always great to see people tackling philosophy outside of the hustle-bro's starter pack.

"CONTEMPLATIVE IMMERSION" ... is a very quick experience for those with ADHD, but is essential for those who want to know what EXPERIENCE actually is. Thank you for this lecture. I almost listened to the entire thing.

I love your channel… just ordered this book

Here, in latinoamerica, the book becomes really popular a fer years ago in the universities. Great summaries.

Thanks for sharing. Oddly ... or maybe not ... this is my second encounter of this philosopher today. Best wishes.

Depression is the consistent expectation of life to be better than it really is.

I think I should read more about contemporary philosophers. Thank you very much ❤️

What an interesting subject thanks for your ability to make this stuff a little more accessible to those of us crave knowledge but don’t quite have the means or the time for continuing education. It makes me feel like I’m being heard in a way…I don’t know if that actually makes sense though but anyway just keep up the great work, cheers!

Love this talk. It is so relevant to our skewed society. Thank you.

amazin, please keep doing this videos

The author is South Korean, a society that is based on success. In fact if you look at the country's history (as well as Korea's), you'd understand why this is so important. Basically the country is a tiny island surrounded by hostiles, so must stay relevant in the world through big achievements, or risk being overtaken by neighbours (as it has happened many times in the past).

This guy is clearly right on. Thank you so much.😊

I'm glad I stumbled upon this. Great podcast, following. Having worked in Japan as prof and now teacher in Canada, I see the signs of this everywhere. Burnout as modus operandi.

I know. I went to Germany one time and I got lost for 4 hours with a dead cell phone. My lord those 4 hours of wandering around frankfurt with no internet distractions. It was so memorable.

Great introduction! The finger pointing at 2:28 made me chuckle :D

Please do something on Yuk Hui. Love the format. Best from Vancouver!

Great introduction! I want to read the book and understand further these ideas.

Burnout Society was the first Byung Chul-Han book I read a few of years ago, this is a really good summary and exposure of the subject on a quite digestible format. Also, his way of referring to the calmed and slow contemplation of things just as they are, is very similar to the way Zen Buddhism address life to experience it just-as-it-is

I think Byung-chul Han’s work really helps us understand mental and psychosomatic illness in a deeper way, especially chronic fatigue syndrome...i think of the aptly titled book by Herman Melville “I would prefer not to.”

I propose sitting and listening to symphonies as a curb on the tendencies mentioned in this video. Not while watching yt. Just listening. Doesn't solve all the problems, but presents a decent counter to some of them.

this was a great summary. thank you... well-delivered.... seems to pair really well with Jenny Odell's How to Do Nothing : Resisting the Attention Economy ... she's a great essayist you might dig

Thank you for introducing me to Byung-Chul Han.

Thank you, Professor. I wonder, additionally, why critiques of modern hustle culture so often seem to feel 'insane' (as though, borrowing the term from Lacan, the "Big Other" were judging us for what we say, & They judged us insane). I wonder if high-velocity action potential in the eager capacity to do work, is at the root of what it means to be a 'sane' & 'rational' 'individual' who may serve w/o the need for assistance. Thank you for keeping alive this critique & have a good day this time.

I’m glad I found your video.

Love this!! 🥰 I used Han in my class last semester! Just discovered your podcast and am loving it! Keep up the great content (minus the burnout 😉 )!

Thank you for this breakdown ! Han’s work doesn’t seem to get covered much

Wonderful summary! The Burn-out Society is my next Byung-Chul Han book on the list. And I wonder what you think about in addition to this being a contrast to Foucault's disciplinary society, this society as a culmination of what Foucault feels is the truest and most effective power of all. . . the internalization of a practice or belief that ultimately allows those who benefit from the drive to self-optimization, etc. to achieve the submission of others without coercion or force? In short: Does he still in some sense agree with Foucault?

Thanks for this intro to Byung-Chul Han ideas about contemporary society. It sounds like Mr. Han has nailed the changes to human attention and judgement in the Internet Age, but he misses a key motivation underpinning the "achievement society." In most of the developed world, high achievement is based on economic insecurity. If you are lucky enough to attain financial, social, and physical security, you can get off the hamster-wheel of progress and enjoy creative slackitude, until you die of sheer boredom.

Great video!!

thanks, this idea captures why i feel so uncomfortable when i see content creators (or people in general) emphasizing a compulsive positivity - a positivity which somehow feels toxic to me. i'm interested in this book now and Byung-Chul Han's ideas.